John Byrne even incorporated himself into the story of Reed Richards’ trial, just as Stan Lee and Kirby had done. Battled and finally defeated a much-weakened Galactus.Encountered surprising, humble, vastly powerful everyday people and.Helped the Inhumans move to their new home on the moon.Were manipulated by Doctor Doom to take back his Kingdom.Shrunk down to the Microverse to battle Psycho Man.Explored the negative zone (for science!) and battled Annihilus.Traveled to the brain of the living planet Ego (who non-readers may remember from the MCU movie “ Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.Under Byrne’s hand, The Fantastic Four: Sue Storm near the start of Byrne's run when she still called herself the 'Invisible Girl' Byrne made a point to figure out the coolest things about the Fantastic Four and included practically ALL of them - highlighting the quirkiness, expanse, and beauty of the Fantastic Four universe that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby had created. He scoured the old comic books to find things you might’ve forgotten about your favorite heroes, plot points that were dropped, and even the superpowers that people neglected to remember (did anyone else remember Super Skrull’s “hypno vision”?). Byrne’s run was a tribute to the whole history of the “Fantastic Four”: One thing I love about John Byrne is that he does his homework. They were people - they were flawed, they were celebrities, and they were a family.Ģ. It was an attempt to remind the public what was so charming about the “Fantastic Four” when it started in the early 1960s. The Thing gets a look at the colossal brain of Ego the Living Planet Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, looked like someone in decent shape, but not a bodybuilder. Fantastic had the build of an aging scientist. Once John Byrne took over as both artist and writer for the “Fantastic Four” (he’d previously done a brief run as penciler), the most notable stylistic change was that suddenly Mr. It was a resurrection of a dying series into one of the best comic books, again, for the first time since the 1960s. For most of last year and into this year, that series has been the “Fantastic Four.” The shift from the post-Jack Kirby writers to John Byrne is nothing less than astounding. For the past few years I’ve taken it upon myself to read major Marvel series, one at a time, from the first issue to the latest. Byrne turned the Fantastic Four back into people. It was a resurrection of a dying series into one of the best comic books, again, for the first time since the 1960s.ġ. So here's a quick list of things that were amazing about John Bryne’s run as writer and artist on the “Fantastic Four.” But, in that sense, he’s the heir of the award's namesake, Jack Kirby, who defined the ‘60s in terms of comic book art. His style came to define so much of both the Marvel ‘80s and the DC early-‘90s eras that moving on from him required rejecting some of what made John Byrne’s work, well. I have noticed that, in certain nerd circles, it’s become kind of cool to put John Byrne down, dismiss his relevance, or otherwise hate on him. So in that spirit, today I'm going to offer a defense of one of the most popular comic artists/writers of the ‘80s and early ‘90s. “Popular = bad” was not a terrible heuristic back then, but it's grown into a tedious formula as the quality of everything from TV shows to pop music has, whether we former New Wavers can accept it or not, wildly improved. Public Enemy, the Cure, and Depeche Mode) that have come to define the ‘80s in people's imaginations were largely outside mainstream radio. This makes sense, as so many of the bands (e.g. This is very much intentional - among Generation Xers like me, there can be a tendency to hate on anything that is popular simply because it’s popular. If you’re one of the (upwards of three!) people who read my monthly awards, you may have noticed that my “nerd treat” often goes to something that is actually quite popular. ![]() The recipient of the February Jack Kirby award is: Fantastic Four issues 232-295 - The John Byrne years (which I read on previous Jack Kirby award-winning service, Marvel Unlimited). Note: I am doing the book award and the nerd treat award separately this month because they will be unusually long.
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